Hayter for May 28, 2023
“An attempt at speaking my article”
Typing was among the most valuable courses I ever took in high school. At the start of the class, I was fairly sure that a manual typewriter would be too mentally challenging for me. That I would forever be a hunt-and-peck typist.
My first day with the manual-typing hunk of steel proved me right. The amount of pressure needed to type the word “the” almost brought me to tears. The next day in class, the typing teacher moved two girls and me to another typing class that had electric typewriters! I never knew why. Nor did I care to question it.
The electric typewriter was friendly as all get out. By the end of the semester, I was a fairly decent typist. Today, you might say that I’m great. – I repeat, “You might say that—” Oh, forget it.
Right now I’m a worn-out mess. This evening Kay walked into my study, looked over my shoulder, and said, “Did you ever think about dictating your articles to your laptop?” I thought it was a joke, so I said, “No. Nor did I think to order a pizza with my shoe phone.”
Kay didn’t even smile, but she did point to the symbol of a microphone hidden at the top of the screen. Below the symbol was the tiny word “dictate”. I was flabbergasted. So much so, that I dictated the first two and a half paragraphs of this article in only a couple of hours.
My computer dictation machine is fairly smart when it comes to keying spoken words. But when it comes to capitalization, semicolons, quotation marks, tabs, paragraphs… you’re going to have to memorize a book of codes.
Say I want to type the symbol “&”. I’d have to say “ampersand”. I might get it on the fourth try, but if I wanted to include quotation marks, I would have to learn French.
I thought it sweet of Kay to suggest I try the grueling, microphone-dictating program, but it’s not happening. My manual-typewriter teacher could’ve told Kay that. -- “Mrs. Hayter, your husband is a bit slow at catching on to things.” Kay would reply, “Duh.”
Well, at least I can still type fairly fast. Of course, I’m sure it’s not called “typing” anymore. Keying? Keyboarding? I haven’t taken any high school or college courses in a good while, so I don’t know what has replaced the word “typing”. Regardless, I am fairly certain that I’ll not live to see an effective computerized dictating program that requires no instructions.
And, yes, I know what you’re thinking. (Work with me here.) You’re wondering what I intended to write about before I got into the dictating debacle. Well, it was something deep. Way down there. It involved Eternity/Infinity. I’ll wait for another time. You’ll love it.
But, rather than delve into everlastingness, I’ve decided to talk about the slew of school buses and inflatable bounce houses that I saw last week as I drove past McDade Park in Conroe. Do you have any idea how talented the bus drivers with CISD are? The parking lot at McDade doesn’t have enough room for a single school bus to turn around, yet there was a line of about 10 buses each with their front bumper practically touching the rear bumper of the bus in front of them. I wanted to take a picture, but the blaring horn coming from the pickup behind me was recommending I not. And, no, I don’t blame the driver.
Bounce houses! They had a giant clown head, ship, castle, and several other bounce themes. There must’ve been eight of those things. I’ve never actually been inside a bounce house. They weren’t invented when I was a kid. They probably had one at Disneyland, but Dad never saw fit to drive his family of nine to California during his two-week vacation. He could only manage our summer trips to Bristow, Oklahoma. We really enjoyed them because, at the time, we didn’t know enough not to.
When I was in elementary school, it was the sixth graders who got to go to Champion Park for their end-of-school picnic. The school district wouldn’t supply the buses so several parents volunteered to haul our buns there. I remember Elsie Hayter drove me and four other kids to the park. The park had a large swimming pool and a super picnic area. We must’ve had a great time because I still remember some of it.
I wonder if the kiddos at McDade will
remember their experiences when they get to be my age. Possibly only the ones
whose Mom or Dad was one of the bus drivers.
Of all those at the picnic, I thought most
about the teachers. You know, the ones who had to plan and supervise the whole
thing. A fun time for the kiddos, but a lot of work and responsibility for the
teachers. Some of them had a blast. Others developed a new twitch or two.
I would’ve told you more about my
end-of-school days, had my computer-dictating experience not held me captive. I
would’ve missed my deadline by a week, had I dictated this entire article.
Yep, the computer microphone can pick up words but requires codes for all other rudiments of grammar. – Hey, this has been an experience for both of us. We’ll get over it in time. Obviously, it will take me a bit longer than you.
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